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Artemisia maritima Subsp. maritima (L) Sea Wormwood
NOMENCLATURE
Artemisia : see A. vulgaris
maritima : growing by the sea.
Wormwood : see A.absinthium
OTHER NAMES : old woman : from hoary leaves
BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION
Wiki Compilation Picture Link to Artemisia maritima
TYPE : perennial, strongly aromatic herb, with short branching vertical woody stock, producing non-flowering rosettes & decumbent then erect flowering shoots 20-50cm, usually downy, branched above. H-Ch.
LEAVES : 2-5cm, mostly bipinnate, the ultimate segments linear, 1 mm wide, blunt. Lower leaves stalked, auricled. Upper leaves simply pinnate, sessile. Uppermost pinnatifid or entire, all >or< woolly on both sides, punctate.
FLOWERS : heads l-2mm diam., ovoid, longer than wide, erect or drooping, numerous, in leafy racemose panicles with short branches. Bracts oblong, outer herbaceous, downy, inner with broad scarious margins. Receptacle glabrous. Flowers yellowish or reddish, all hermaphrodite but central sterile. Achenes rare. Wind pollinated. Fl. 8-9. 2n=36, 54.
HABITAT : drier parts of salt marshes & sea walls.
DISTRIBUTION : native, locally common on coasts of Great Britain, N. to N. Aberdeen & Cumbria, absent extreme W. & N.
Very local on E. & W. coasts of Ireland. N.W. Europe from W. France to Denmark & S. Sweden.
BSBI Distribution Map for to Artemisia maritima (UK)
VARIETY : A.m. subgallica (Rouy).
HISTORICAL MEDICINAL USES
Culpepper : "boiling water poured upon it as stomachic, or tincture in brandy. Hysteric complaints completely cured. In the scurvy & hypochondrical disorders of studious sedentary men, a strong infusion."
Dr. John Hill : "Gives appetite, assists digestion use flowery tops & young shoots."
Thornton 'Family Herbal' : "beat up in thrice its weight of fine sugar, it is made into a conserve ordered by the London college."
1930's : flowering tops & young shoots as for Wormwood (A. absinthium), but less powerful. Also as tonic, aromatic & intermittent fever.
Source of herba absinthii maritimi, used as stomachic, tonic & flavouring herb.
OTHER USES
Source of santonin, used as vermifuge.
INFO LINKS FOR Artemisia maritima
Wikipedia (UK)
Plants For a Future (UK)
PubMed (USA)
'Artemisia, Wild in the British Isles', Compiled by James M. Burton 2004
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